Ryan Costello
@costello
Writer, podcaster, ENnie award winning Essence20 designer, G.I. Joe enthusiast, former Voltron social media manager. ryanwrites.design
A Classified G.I. JOE fan's letter to a loved one after looking at their incomplete Tiger Force shelf.
My sister-in-law asked if there's anything else my daughter wants for her birthday. Now, I wait...
Just got a random message that's pure wholesomeness. I should get in the habit of sending messages like this, it made my day.
Psyche-Out is a character and concept I learned to appreciate more as an adult. His Classified design is so cool, hopefully he'll win over more fans.
Dawn helped my daughter feel comfortable playing with her Snake Eyes mask and sword as she got older and the gender of the characters she looked up to became more significant to her.
Dawn is a rare figure that I preordered. I didn't want to miss my chance to grab this figure, especially because of my daughter.
Her other head has her hair pinned up, which solves the problem if you're OK with that look.
The big downside is that the long hair of her helmeted head (my preferred look for the character) limits some neck articulation, especially when her scabbard is plugged into her back.
Dawn's joints and articulation feature as wide a range of motion as your average Snake Eyes figure, able to strike some impressive poses.
Her new toy is up there with the best G.I. JOE Classified figures, and might be the best female figure in the line. Hasbro has struggled with getting as much articulation out of the joints of the thinner female figures, elbows especially.
We were getting a lot of legacy characters in comics at that time and I think Dawn had one of the better backstories to justify the change, managing to thread the needle of comic nonsense and G.I. JOE's grounded universe.
Actually, I may have a few details wrong. I wasn't reading ARAH at the time and still haven't read her introductory arc. But I liked the pseudoscience origin that gave her both her own identity and justified her taking on the Snake Eyes mantle.
Dawn was as an athletic citizen of COBRA-controlled Springfield. She later had the original Snake Eye's conscious uploaded into her psyche. This fast tracked her enrolment in G.I. JOE, where her knowledge of COBRA's cover city played a valuable role on missions.
That's not just a number I picked because it's nice and round. She was introduced in 2016's A Real American Hero 226 by Larry Hama, but only received her first action figure this year, a few months shy of the character's 10th anniversary.
I wondered why the Masters of the Universe movie gave Dian, an elevated background character, so much spotlight during the climactic battle. Found out she's from the newspaper comic. There was a MotU newspaper comic? Why didn't my newspaper growing up have any of these cool super hero comic strips?
This has to be the darkest official promotional image Hasbro ever released.
With @lartist.bsky.social at the @keycon.bsky.social closing ceremonies.
Got my first airport pick-up. Keycon doesn't start until tomorrow and already they've shown that they know how to take care of their guests.
Dead Eye is illustrated by @stefano-romano.bsky.social. I especially loved his BTS schematic tracking what part goes where in bot mode.
Years ago, a JoeCustoms board member illustrated a Transformer based on The Persuader. I lost the art and the name of the artist. When MaesterAelix asked me for ideas for a Transformers RPG build for his series, I took the chance to create a new Persuader Transformer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDZW...
That's the Sigma 6 Metal Mayhem. Sigma 6 figures are 2" taller than Classified figures, so I needed to stretch Lifeline out to get him to fit nicely. But forcing Lifeline into mechs that weren't meant for him is a tradition now. sigma6central.com/toys/reviews...
As a kid, inspired by an episode of Muppet Babies, I smashed a robot toy to see what I could cannibalize out of the parts. The robot's upper body and a hollowed out hinged made a decent mech suit for a G.I. JOE. I decided Lifeline was the best candidate to pilot it. Thus, Mechamedic was born!
The toys say Doc is the pacifist. The cartoon and comic say it's Lifeline. It's time they put up their paci-fists and settle this in the ring! Who do you think of as G.I. JOE’s resident pacifist? And which G.I. JOE medic do you prefer?
The struggle of the modern TTRPG gamer. Two sessions scheduled for this week, both our first session in a month, both cancelled.
Then it cuts to the wide shot and it gets worse. We could have assumed the room was fairly full a second ago, but apparently there are only three Joes in the stands: